


Enough

by dragonwings948



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Friendship, Hamilton References, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Episode: s04e08-09 Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead, River Song mentions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-18
Updated: 2017-02-18
Packaged: 2018-09-25 06:21:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,439
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9807002
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dragonwings948/pseuds/dragonwings948
Summary: Donna and the Doctor are both shaken up after the events of Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead, but they find that just being together is comfort enough.





	

**Author's Note:**

> On a late night plane ride back from Chicago over the summer, I listened to Time Reaver for the second time as I looked out at the shining lights of Illinois below. It's just such a beautiful sight, seeing the bright patches of yellow in a sea of darkness. Having just listened to Ten and Donna in Time Reaver and their mention of the Library at the end, my thoughts turned to them. I had never written Donna before, but I could picture her and Ten just sitting in the TARDIS and watching the lights below. The image was so clear that I knew I had to write it. And hence, this fic was born. 
> 
> If you squint, you'll notice a modified line from Hamilton towards the end that I didn't originally intend, it just kind of worked.

            Donna hesitated, her right hand curled into a loose fist at her side. The door in front of her had suddenly become the only one in the corridor, so she hoped that meant the TARDIS was helping her find the Doctor.

            Still, there was a very good chance that this was his bedroom, which he hadn’t seemed keen on showing her when he had taken her on a tour of the TARDIS. But right now, she was desperate. Raising her fist, she tapped a series of three quiet knocks on the door.

            “Come in!” came the immediate reply.

            The door slid open automatically, allowing Donna a view of the Doctor’s small room. She had expected much more extravagance, but unless the door on the opposite wall led to another room, the space was only occupied by the essentials: a bed, a desk with papers and books strewn everywhere, and a closet.

            In the middle of the bed sat the Doctor, small metal parts surrounding him on the comforter. A frown was etched onto his face as he stared at his sonic screwdriver, poking and prodding it with his fingers as if he were trying to force an extra piece into the side of it. He glanced up at Donna for a moment, but his expression remained unchanged.

            “Couldn’t sleep?” He turned his gaze back to the sonic screwdriver and pushed his glasses further up on his nose.

            “No,” Donna sighed. Even now, her mind hadn’t stopped thinking through the entire imaginary life she had lived. She still couldn’t quite cope with the fact that it had all been fake, that _this_ was reality.

            The Doctor copied her sigh as he let the screwdriver fall from his hands and drop onto the bed. “Neither could I.” He ran a hand through his hair, his expression weary.

            “Do you even have to sleep?” Donna asked, taking a step inside the room. The door swooshed closed behind her.

            “Not really. Not much, anyway. Such a boring thing, sleeping. But sometimes it’s better than…” He trailed off, staring down at his screwdriver. A forlorn look came into his eyes, replacing the weariness which had been there just a moment ago.

            Donna shuffled to the edge of the bed and sat down, careful to avoid the pieces of equipment scattered around. “Yeah, I know,” she said softly.

            “How are you doing?” he asked. The mattress shifted and the Doctor scooted forward to sit by her side. “A whole life in your head that wasn’t real; that’s not easy to cope with.”

            Donna shrugged. “Part of me knew the whole time that it wasn’t real. But I just keep thinking…I keep thinking he’s going to be there. I keep thinking that I’ll go put my children to bed soon.” She stared down at her hands as tears pricked at her eyes. “It was a good life.”

            “I’m sorry.” He took one of her hands and gently squeezed it. Donna looked over at him to see that he was looking right at her, having removed his glasses. His wide eyes exuded sympathy. “Really, I truly am.”

            His sincerity warmed her heart. The simple words made her feel infinitely better, but the look in his eyes reminded her that he was hurting too.

            “I’m sorry too.” She pressed his hand in return. “Sorry about River Song.”

            He swallowed hard and tensed his jaw. His brow bent downward as he looked at their hands.

            “But at least it’s just the beginning for you. You’ll see her again. Quite a lot, it seems.”

            “Yeah.” He released her hand and instead began toying with the sonic screwdriver. “But the whole time, I’ll know. The first time she meets me, I’ll already have seen her die.”

            Donna stayed silent. She didn’t quite know how to comfort him. It was a relationship that was going to be painful the whole way through, and there was no way to fix that. Sometimes, she thought, being a time traveler wasn’t any fun at all.

            But sometimes, being a time traveler could provide just the right distraction.

            “Let’s go somewhere.”

            The Doctor looked over at her with one eyebrow raised.

            “Come on!” She bumped her shoulder against his. “Let’s go somewhere fun we can get our mind off of it. What about Space Florida? You’ve been promising me for ages!”

            He smiled for a moment, but then his expression fell. Donna had never seen him quite like this; he was always one to move right along from tragedy, but something about River Song had deeply shaken him. Maybe she was only making things worse.

            “Okay, I’ll leave you alone with your toys.” She really didn’t want to be alone, but more than anything she wanted that hopeless look in his eyes to go away. She stood up and took a step toward the door.

            “Wait, Donna.”

            She turned as the Doctor jumped to his feet. “There’s something I want to show you.” He offered her a small smile. Donna let him walk out the door first and followed him down the TARDIS corridor, noticing his steps were slower and more measured than usual. As they arrived in the console room, the Doctor continued his lethargic pace as he set the time and space machine in motion. The roaring engines started up and Donna grabbed onto a railing as the ship rocked. In the matter of a few seconds, the TARDIS wheezed again, announcing its arrival.

            “Where are we?” Donna asked, keeping her voice quiet. It seemed appropriate.

            The Doctor nodded toward the doors. “Go ahead and see.” A little more excitement lit up in his eyes, a small bit of his normal self.

            Donna took a few steps to the doors and pulled one of them inward. She gasped as she saw clusters of small lights amidst a sea of darkness thousands of feet below. The TARDIS seemed to be floating over a planet, maybe even Earth, drifting slowly and erratically as if moved by a breeze.

            The Doctor’s footsteps clopped on the grating, and in a few moments he was standing beside her. He pulled the other door toward him and sat down, his legs dangling off the side of the TARDIS.

            “Come on.” He patted the space beside him. Probably seeing her skeptical look, he added, “It’s perfectly safe, I promise.”

            Using the side of the TARDIS as support, Donna carefully lowered herself to the ground beside the Doctor. She sat cross-legged, however, still wary.

            The Doctor kicked his trainers back and forth, their stark white colour standing out against the black expanse below. Very few lights could be seen now.

            It was…beautiful. Donna had seen a similar sight a few times from the inside of an airplane, but there was something about actually being out in the open that made it infinitely more wonderful.

            “We’re several thousand miles above the surface of the Earth.” The Doctor frowned, thinking. “Somewhere in Illinois, I think.”

            Donna looked around, but nothing else could be seen in the black sky. “Couldn’t we get hit by an airplane or something?”

            “Nah. The TARDIS would warn us long before then.” He stared downward and smiled, his eyes softening. Donna watched him carefully. She wondered how many times he had done this. How many things he had lost. How much he had suffered.

            How often he had to forget about them and move on.

            “I think it’s unfair,” she whispered to herself as she gazed down at the Earth below.

            “What is?” He looked up at her, his eyes full of curiosity.

            “You go around saving people all the time; saving worlds, saving planets, but…you never get any thanks for it.”

            His chest rose and fell in a sigh as he let his eyes drift downward again. “The universe doesn’t discriminate between heroes and villains, Donna. It still takes, no matter who you are.” He pulled his sonic screwdriver from his pocket and gazed at it. “It takes until you have nothing left,” he added as a murmur.

            The raw emotion in his words stunned her into silence for a few moments before she could think of something to say. She tried to add some energy into her voice as she said, “Well the universe hasn’t taken me yet, and I’m not going to let it.”

            He smiled a little, pocketing his screwdriver again. “No, not you Donna Noble.”

            And so they sat together, watching the Earth turn, each comforted by the other’s presence. While they were both deep in their own sorrows, they knew that they had each other. And for now, it was enough.

           

           


End file.
